In contact sports such as football, hockey, ice hockey, indoor or outdoor lacrosse (also called box lacrosse or field lacrosse), soccer, and the like, protective equipment is often worn to protect players from blunt force injuries caused by blows from sports equipment and/or stationary objects into which they may be forced by contact during play. Examples of such protective equipment include helmets, eyeshields, protective clothing or apparels, chest protectors, padding such as shoulder pads, elbow pads, knee pads, jockstraps with hard plastic cup inserts, mouthguards, padded gloves, and the like.
For example, lacrosse is a fast-pace contact sport that requires exceptional eye and hand coordination along with the ability to sustain violent hits and cross-checking with playing sticks made of metal or other rigid materials. Box lacrosse is one of the fastest growing sports at both professional and amateur levels.
Lacrosse teaches and allows the players to cross-check (i.e., using the stick to push/hit the opponent in the back, side, and chest) when defending. Lacrosse uses a way of timing in each period, called run time, which means that the clock does not stop during play until a 15-minute quarter is over. The clock is not immediately stopped when a player is injured. Rather, when a player is injured, the clock is allowed to run up to four (4) minutes before the referees may stop the play clock. Being able to reduce the injury run-off time can help keep the flow of the game consistent, and allow a losing team to possibly make a comeback.
Lacrosse may be extremely dangerous to young players who have not developed the kinesthetic coordination to safely deliver and receive cross-checks. This can result in an opposing player's stick to slide up a player's shoulder and into their neck, resulting a direct blow to the unprotected neck. In youth lacrosse games (e.g., lacrosse games for players aged 5 to 18 yrs), the size of the players can vary greatly which increases the risks of neck injury to opposing players having less weight and/or insufficient kinesthetic coordination.
Currently available protective equipment, however, does not provide sufficient injury protection in many cases. For example, a player's neck area generally does not have sufficient protection against potential impact forces delivered thereto, which, as described above, may be caused by a stick wielded at or deflected thereto at high speed and force.